A Whisky, Tango & Foxtrot Mystery 04 - A Deadly Tail

by Dixie Lyle

  Trentini was in his twenties, with a black puffball of curly hair like an ink-stained dandelion. He wore a down-filled blue parka and jeans, thick-framed black glasses, and a look of desperation. “Come on, Natty. It was a mistake, okay? These are amateur zombies, all right? We spent more on their makeup than their paychecks. You tell them to shamble and stumble and moan, they do okay—anything more than that, we’re rolling the dice. I’ll have a word with them, make sure they understand what we’re trying to do in this scene.”

  She gave him a look that would have made a death ray fall in love. “That’s not good enough. One of those brain-dead idiot morons actually grabbed me. I want him gone.”

  Trentini’s voice was low and reasonable; Natalia’s was not. This was a performance, all right, but it wasn’t for the director; it was for the benefit of the poor belated and belatexed extras over by the undead bus stop. She wanted them to know that they were expendable and she wasn’t, and she wasn’t going to be subtle about it. Personally, I think Trentini could have made a better movie by just giving her a chain saw, telling her one of them got her latte order wrong, and then following her around with a camera.

  I know what you’re thinking: None of this was my problem. I had my own potential disasters to worry about, so why borrow trouble from somewhere else? Was I such a masochist that I had to fling myself blindly into the whirling blades of whatever crisis was currently revving its engine?

  No.

  But it was my job to keep things running smoothly and the guests happy. And while I prefer to prevent calamity whenever possible, sometimes all you can do is wait until the storm passes—and have lots of warm blankets, soup, and first-aid supplies on hand. Which was, more or less, what I was preparing to do.

  At the moment it was a matter of timing. I did my best to match my pace to her seethe, and did pretty well; she ramped up at a fairly predictable rate. Critical detonation in five, four, three …

  “—I don’t care if you don’t know who it was! Make one of them admit it!”

  Trentini shook his head carefully, as if he were afraid it was about to fall off. “How? Threaten to take away their brain rations?”

  Two, one …

  “You think this is a joke? That’s it! I am not shooting this scene until you deal with the problem!”

  Boom.

  She spun around in her ripped Victorian gown—which, admittedly, was made to spin—and stormed off as I arrived. She ignored me completely, which was just about perfect as far as I was concerned.

  I glanced back at her, pretending to be mildly puzzled but really just waiting for her to get out of earshot. When she’d stalked far enough away, I smiled at the director and said, “Mr. Trentini. Just came out to let you know that our maintenance people have dealt with the electrical problem, so you shouldn’t be having any more outages. Lunch will be Vietnamese spring rolls with rice noodles and lemongrass chicken, and our regular masseuse is dropping by at three. I know you’re busy, but she’s willing to do a ten-minute back and shoulders right here on the lawn. I’m setting up a heated tent to one side and she’s bringing her own chair. Oh, and I tracked down that craft beer you were raving about yesterday—there’ll be a case on ice in your room by five.”

  He looked at me blankly, and for just an instant I wondered if I’d read him wrong. Some people—okay, many people—will react to being yelled at by immediately finding someone else to yell at, and even being nice to them is no guarantee they’ll react the same way.

  “Foxtrot,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

  “Can’t,” I said with a grin. “Too busy. You know how much planning a wedding takes?”

  “Yes, I do.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead with one thumb and a forefinger. “Because I’m married to the devil. And by married, I mean chained for eternity, and by devil I mean this project—”

  “Lucky! Lucky, I gotta talk to you!” The man yelling at us from over by the cameras wore a bright orange puffy coat with a white fur-lined hood. As he jogged toward us, Lucky turned his face away and murmured, “And him.”

  I checked the buckles on my professional smile, made sure it was still firmly strapped in place. Yep. “Mr. Rolvink,” I said pleasantly.

  He stopped just short of us and leered in my general direction. “Foxtrot! You know, it’s not too late to take me up on my offer. I could make you a star.” He said this with absolutely no trace of irony or even playfulness; his delivery was more of the car-salesman, I’m-being-so-sincere-it-hurts sort. He had a tan that came out of a bottle, a body that came from a personal trainer he mentioned at every opportunity, and the worst comb-over I’ve ever seen. If he just shaved his head, he might be passably attractive—in a purely physical way—but those stringy, greasy strands plastered over the top of his skull were the tonsorial equivalent of a horrifying five-car pileup. I kept expecting to see a fleet of tiny police cruisers and ambulances come zooming along his hairline and screech to a stop on his forehead.

  “Thanks, but I’m happy with my current position in the solar system,” I said. “Besides, you already have a star. Though she seems to be burning a little hot this morning—”

  Rolvink turned his attention to Lucky, like I was a TV channel he was bored with. “Lucky, Lucky, Lucky. You have to treat Natalia right. She’s very … passionate about what she does, y’know?” He raised his eyebrows in a hey-you’re-a-guy-so-of-course-you-do way. “You just need to channel that. She’s gonna turn in a great performance, I guarantee it. Didn’t she ace the finale you shot yesterday?”

  “She killed it, yeah,” said Lucky. I got the feeling he and Rolvink were using the expression in very different ways, but I kept my mouth shut.

  Rolvink chuckled and clapped him on the back. “’Course she did. And we’re still on schedule, right?”

  “More or less,” Lucky sighed. “We’ll wrap primary shooting tonight, do a few pickup shots tomorrow and the next day—mostly zombie stuff, maybe a few scenes with Tervo. He’s got some ideas for a different take on what we did before, and they sound interesting. It’s about his character’s motivations—”

  “Yeah, no, I don’t think so. Get what you need today, all right? I mean, we can stick around for a few days so you can edit footage, but I gotta send the crew home after tomorrow at the latest. These union guys don’t work cheap, you know?”

  What he wanted was to enjoy ZZ’s free hospitality for a few more days while cutting costs wherever he could. Not really surprising, considering the film’s budget, but not good news for me.

  Lucky frowned. “I thought we were okay on the financing. You told me—”

  “I know what I told you. Just wrap things up, okay?” Rolvink’s voice suddenly had that strained, overly polite, not-in-front-of-the-kids tone; he didn’t want to discuss this in my presence.

  Lucky, though, wouldn’t take the hint. When he wasn’t behind a camera he came across as nervous and unsure of himself, but that changed when he was on set. Directing called for many different skills, but the most important was the ability to be in charge; try to take that away and you’re in for a fight.

  “Is this about that blogger’s article?” Lucky asked. “Look, you can’t listen to people like that. You pay attention to every negative opinion that pops up on the ’Net, you’ll make yourself crazy. We have nothing to worry about—”

  “Do I look worried?” Rolvink said, holding his hands wide and smiling. To anybody else, maybe not—but he did to me. I’m used to working around people in high-pressure environments, and I’ve developed a very fine sense of when that pressure is starting to get to someone. Rolvink wasn’t about to blow, but I could see how hard he was trying to look calm and relaxed. I wasn’t fooled.

  Neither was Lucky, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “I’ll … get it done,” he said quietly.

  “Great, great.” Having gotten what he wanted, Rolvink’s interest in Lucky’s side of the conversation blew away like smoke and he turned his attention back to me. “And w
hat about you, beautiful—got a little downtime coming?”

  I’m very detail-oriented, so I catch things other people don’t. And in that instant when Rolvink mentally dismissed Lucky and focused on me, I saw what’s called a microexpression cross the director’s face. Microexpressions are very fast, sometimes lasting only one twenty-fifth of a second, but you can catch them if you’re really paying attention. They often reveal an emotion the person is trying to hide, or sometimes an emotion so buried the person isn’t aware of it themselves.

  The emotion I saw on Lucky Trentini’s face was rage.

  “You ever wanna hit the hot tub,” Rolvink continued, “I’m sure your boss could dig up a bikini for you. Or you could go without—wouldn’t matter to me.”

  Normally, I’m unfazed by being hit on. I’ve had more passes thrown at me than an NFL player, and even the highly inappropriate ones can usually be dealt with by deliberately ignoring them or deflecting them with humor. Most guys will get the hint and back off, and if they don’t I politely excuse myself and leave. Should someone try to prevent me from leaving, it becomes a very different situation and I respond much less politely. Very rarely have I found myself in a situation where it went beyond that, and in every single case it went very, very badly for the other person involved. Being tough is an attitude, not a physical attribute, and the very worst person to have angry at you isn’t somebody large—it’s somebody smart.

  I am pretty damn smart.

  But Maurice Rolvink was my least favorite kind of sleazeball: the kind that wouldn’t give up. His game wasn’t so much to get me in bed—he knew his chances of that were zero to minus zero—as to just get a rise out of me. He’d approach, spout some clichéd pickup line, watch for my reaction and then try again. It was less annoying than it was tedious, like swatting at a cloud of bugs that just refused to go away. I guess he figured that he could eventually wear me down to the point I’d snap at him, which he would consider a victory.

  Sadly, he had no idea who he was dealing with.

  “Oh, Mr. Rolvink,” I said. “You know I’m not waterproof. Besides, immersing me in water above one hundred and three degrees would invalidate my warranty.” I gave him my blankest, emptiest smile and waited for his response.

  As I expected, he blinked and then laughed. “Ah, Fox, you’re a riot. A robot, right. This is a zombie flick, remember? Not sci- fi.”

  I could have schooled him on all the different genres zombie movies can fit into, but tossing information at guys like Maurice is like throwing peanuts at a snake; it’s mildly entertaining, but all you’re really doing is wasting peanuts and annoying the snake. What I actually wanted was a good exit line, and now I had it. Of course, I had to throw in a few hammy robot steps, but once I was moving I just kept going.

  That was the plan, anyway. But then Rolvink called after me, “Hey! What’s that cat doing out here? I thought I said no animals on set!” And I came to an abrupt, jerky halt before I’d gone more than ten feet.

  I saw a black-and-white blur disappear into the bushes beside the front door. Tango, I thought with exasperation. Of course she’d gotten out; nothing could stop a determined feline.

  Tango! I called mentally, but she wasn’t answering. I saw movement, then another blur of black-and-white as she sprinted out of the bushes and around the corner of the house. I scowled and went after her.

  When I turned the corner, she was gone.

  3.

  It’s useless to chase a cat. They are faster, more agile, sneakier, and can go places you can’t. However, I thought I knew where Tango was headed. So I didn’t try to catch her—I just paused and then changed direction, as if I’d suddenly thought of something I needed to do over thataway, but there was no hurry in actually doing it. Much like a cat.

  I made my way around the far end of the house, and down the little path, and around the pool, and finally over to the tall wooden gate in the hedge that divides the graveyard from the rest of the estate proper.

  I may have mentioned the presence of an animal graveyard previously, and what with all the other weirdness it’s entirely possible it slipped right by you. Don’t blame yourself, it’s my fault.

  So. Here’s the thing.

  The animal graveyard in question is not only right next door but technically part of the grounds, since ZZ owns the land. Also, it’s really big; at more than fifty thousand plots of varying shapes and sizes, it’s been the final destination for many a beloved pet for over a hundred years. Except final destination, as it turns out, is not exactly accurate.

  See, animals have their own afterlives. And because the universe is actually a much fairer place than most people think, pets who die can reunite with their former owners once they’re dead, too (or, you know, the other way around). They accomplish this through portals, grave-site gateways that let the animals pop out of their afterlife and hop, scamper, crawl, or fly over to a portal into the human one. This is made possible by having the graves of so many different species (including urns full of human cremains) all in one place. Not so much for mystical reasons, either: it’s more like building a train station at the spot where a bunch of different railway lines intersect.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking. Pet cemetery plus zombies equals horrific outcome (not to mention massive copyright infringement). But that’s not how the Great Crossroads works, not at all; it’s all about love surviving death, not shambling monstrosities clawing their way out of the ground. Virtually all the ghosts in the Great Crossroads are simply travelers, on their way from their own special paradise to visit a much-loved person in another; that’s about as far from a stomach-twisting horror story as you can get.

  That being said, there are exceptions.

  We call them prowlers. Lost spirits, not quite wild, not quite domesticated. They’re drawn to the Crossroads by the activity and the emotion, but they’re too confused or wary to actually cross over into whatever animal heaven they belong in. They hang around like homeless outpatients at a bus station, and sometimes they can be unpredictable—even violent.

  Standing right at the threshold, blocking my way, were two people—one of whom I knew quite well, the other of which I’d only met online.

  “Foxtrot!” Keene beamed at me. He’s a great beamer; he’s got one of those wide, toothy smiles, framed by dimples and topped by eyes that practically twinkle with mischief. The bushy, rock-star hair helps too, but he’d be boyishly cute even with a shaved head. “Yemane just got here. I had to show him the graveyard, first thing.”

  The other one was Yemane Fikru. The name was Eritrean in origin, which was kind of odd for a blue-eyed, blond man with dreads and a reddish-orange beard. When I’d asked him about it online, he’d told me it was a chosen name, meant to reflect his beliefs as opposed to his genetic heritage. He wore an oversized bright-blue T-shirt, black yoga pants, and sandals, and didn’t seem cold at all.

  “Hey, Foxtrot,” Yemane said, putting out his hand to shake mine. “Nice to finally meet you. Great place you have here.” His grip was firm but gentle, and he put his other hand over mine for just a second before breaking contact. He wasn’t beaming quite as broadly as Keene, but his smile was warm and open.

  “Thanks, but it’s not mine—I only work here. Which means if there’s anything you need, just let me know. I aim to please, and I’m a pretty good shot.” It’s one of my standard introductions, but most people don’t react the way Yemane did: He shook his head and laughed.

  “No, I don’t mean the house,” he said. “I was talking about this.”

  He swept his arm around, indicating the graveyard. “It’s amazing. I can feel its significance.”

  Normally when people make statements like that I have to make a conscious effort not to roll my eyes, but Yemane appeared sincere; the look on his face was just short of rapture. Then he seemed to catch himself, and turned back to me with a wry grin. “I mean, obviously it’s significant to the people who buried their pets here. I just—I can tell it’s a specia
l place. A … Great place.”

  He put just enough emphasis on the word that I could hear the capital letter. I nodded, but tried not to show anything other than bland agreement. “Yes, it’s quite impressive. Over fifty thousand animals are interred here, and the cremated remains of more than two hundred people are right alongside their pets.”

  I was waiting to see if he’d make some sort of veiled comment about crosses or roads, but he didn’t. He just nodded back, looking solemn. “That’s a lot of souls. Must be quite the responsibility.”

  A responsibility that happened to be mine, though only a select few were supposed to be aware of that—and Yemane definitely wasn’t on the list. “I … guess so,” I said. I really didn’t know what else to say.

  Fortunately Keene is never at a loss for words, and he jumped right in with, “Lucky that’s not your domain, eh, Trot? You’ve got enough on your plate as it is—including a zoo full of animals still among the living. But not to worry; Coop’s got matters well in hand.”

  Cooper was the graveyard’s caretaker, the one who cut the grass and maintained the graves. He and Keene got along just fine, mostly because Coop was an old hippie and Keene was … well, let’s just say an enthusiastic fan of chemical recreation.

  “I can’t wait to meet him,” Yemane said. “I’m sure he has some incredible stories to tell.”

  “You two will get along like a house on fire,” Keene said. “Most likely a greenhouse, if I know old Coop.”

  “Don’t take up too much of his time,” I said. “He’s still got a job to do.” Which made me sound like a real buzzkill, but if Foxtrot wasn’t my middle name—which, technically, it wasn’t—then it would probably be Responsibility.

  “We’ll stay aware,” said Yemane. He said it as if I’d just warned them about voracious bears in the woods and he was assuring me they wouldn’t get eaten.

  “Come on then,” said Keene, motioning to Yemane as he stepped into the graveyard. “Let me introduce you to my muse. You and him will get along famously, I’m sure.” He wasn’t talking about Cooper now, but the ghost of a nocturnal primate named Jeepers, the only galago buried here. Keene liked to hang out at his graveside when he was stuck on a new song; he claimed the bush baby was a kindred spirit who helped him through creative tough spots. I’d seen Jeepers myself, though I’d never talked to him.